Delusions of Average

Some folks think an annual income of a half million dollars leaves them…average…and strapped. The tweeted image of an example of this delusion is below.  CNBC represents this as a real couple.

You can read the CNBC article linked to in the tweet here, but the image and many of the comments in the tweet’s thread are instructive by themselves.

Morgan Housel offered a couple:

@morganhousel
So $36K in 401k contributions should be added to “what’s left over,” along with $18K in charity contributions (not an expense either).

@morganhousel
If you fix that then the headline becomes “This couple that makes $500K and spends too much money still saves more than 20% of their after-tax salary, which is what happens when you make a lot of money.”

Here’s ODS:

‏@brendan_schleen
Average people don’t have the ability to contribute 18k a year to charity either

KP:

@lightsoutonight
Their house is $1.5 million, with $20,000 property tax payment.  So average.

m night…:

‏@HezbollottaLove
Personally I love to be so goddamn deluded that I can save $36k a year for retirement, have a $200/month per person clothing budget, and spend $2000/month on food, and STILL have $7300 leftover as Do Whatever money, and think that’s “average”

And Thomas:

‏@MintyMultimedia
3 6k vacations a year, 12k a year for “lessons” even though the kids are young enough to need 42k a year in childcare.
The dude who deluded himself into thinking this was “average” was high off his own farts.

 

In the end, though, go ahead and read the linked-to article.  Its author, Kathleen Elkins, shows herself to be delusional with remarks like these:

As the example of one New York City couple shows, you and your partner could be making $500,000 a year and still end up with very little besides 401(k) money.

And

…there’s only $7,300 left each year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts, or retirement funds.

Very little.  Those 401(k)s getting 36 stacks per year aren’t actually retirement funds, apparently.  And the $7,300 that’s left over is just dog food.  Never mind that lots of actually average income households would love to have that much at the end of the year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts….

 

h/t to ralf.

Progressive-Democrat Disingenuousness

The manufactured anxiety of many Progressive-Democrats and their support entities over release of the Mueller report is breathtaking.

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I, VT) wants

the whole damn report.

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D, MA)”

The American people deserve to see the full report.

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar (D, MN):

Today, like everyone else, I want to see that Mueller report.  It’s time to make the entire report public. That’s justice.

Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris:

…a short letter from Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General is not sufficient.”  The American public deserves transparency and accountability and the Mueller report must be made public for a full accounting of what happened….

Congressmen and Committee Chairs of six House Committees, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, Maxine Waters, Richard Neal, and Eliot Engel wrote a letter to AG William Barr demanding release of the report “within a week.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (D, VT):

The next step: the full release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, with its underlying evidence, and with only limited redactions for truly classified material. Not a summary.

Congressman Peter Welch (D, VT):

The American people have a right to know what’s in his report.  If the Attorney General refuses to make it public, Congress should demand its immediate release and subpoena it if he refuses.

Public Citizen:

[Nine] in 10 Americans believe the complete Mueller report should be public…. The demand is vocal, obvious, and must be met.

What these folks are carefully ignoring as they emphasize their hysteria is that Barr has already, and repeatedly, promised as complete a release as the law and DoJ regulations allow and as quickly as possible.

This disingenuous personally aggrandizing worry should be kept in mind during the campaign season.